By Daniel Mwesigwa

The Ministry of Health has just reported new Covid-19 infections at 209.

These are results of COVID-19 tests done on 15 December 2021. The cumulative confirmed cases are 128,509.

The breakdown of the new cases is: 207 Alerts And Contacts: Wakiso (125), Kampala (56), Busia (5), Napak (4), Mpigi (1), Jinja (1), Ngora (1), Hoima (1), Soroti (1), Mbale (1), Mbarara (2), Kyotera (7), Amuru (2) 2 Truck drivers from Kyotera and Amuru.

No explanation has so far been offered regarding the new infection rate.

In early December, the National Planning Authority (NPA) predicted that Uganda will record an increase in COVID-19 cases this week, predicting a total of 310 cases by end of the week.

The week talked about ended between December 14 and December 15, 2021.

Eng. Abraham Muwanguzi who manages the Science Planning Department said between December 5 and 11, the country would be recording an average of 45 cases but these are projected to further increase to a weekly average of 330 cases by the 18th of December.

These projections are coming in at the same time Uganda Virus Research Institute has confirmed cases of the recently detected Omicron COVID-19 variant. Muwanguzi says the increase is driven by local factors as people are ready for the Christmas and end of year festivities.

It should be noted that the country has had a flat curve with new COVID-19 cases continuously decreasing since October. By end of October for instance, the country had been recording a daily average of about 65 cases which continued to the lows of 40 cases average in November.

However, with this projection and the new variant, experts say this shouldn’t be cause for any alarm if the population consistently follows the Standard Operating Procedures of hand hygiene, masking, and physical distancing.